Drinking from the firehose
(photo credit: Dr Ivan Misner)
If there is one thing that we have learned over the past four years it is that, when we are served a non-stop barrage of lies, scandals, criminal acts, horrors, and just plain bizarreness, there is no time to focus on any one thing to push back on; by the time we formulate a sentence to demonstrate just how far actions and situations have deviated from the norm, a dozen new things just as weird or even more so have already happened — making our complaint passé, even quaint. Something like emoluments, so flagrant and in-your-face that began on day one of the previous administration, was just the other day ruled a moot point because he is no longer president. Four years later! The point is that there actually were so many other things going on that needed to be defended against that emoluments seemed low on the scale of priorities. On Day 2 (figuratively speaking) he disclosed classified information to a Russian spy IN THE OVAL OFFICE!!! There were children in cages, Hatch Act violations on a daily basis, security breaches...I am not going to go down the list; we are all painfully aware of just how much he got away with. A good deal of that was made possible by the sheer volume of inanity and insanity that made it impossible to hold him to account for any one thing because, by the time the discussion would take place, so much else had transpired that the original transgression seemed minor and “old news”. Even when it had taken place the day before. But turnabout is fair play. And virtuous turnabout is delicious irony.
Biden seems to be aware of this, to a certain extent. He may develop carpal tunnel within two weeks on the job, given the alacrity with which he has been signing Executive Orders and pushing out new policies. This is leaving our friends across the aisle in a position that is familiar to us; there is so much going on that they don’t know where to give their focus. It is hard for them to explain to their under-informed followers what it is that they are supposed to be outraged about and why. I don’t know why, but the Republicans are so much better at writing the narrative than we are, it is a maddening failing of our political leaders, but that is a discussion for another time. Yet here, with so much accomplished in just one week, we are finally able to see what it looks like when we don’t give the opposition time to create their own reality around the things that are being advanced (or rolled back, depending on the case).
What I am hoping is that there is not simply a list of, say, 500 things that Biden and Co. has decided to take care of immediately, followed by a longer, slower look at single major issues. The ACA was a big effing deal, but it also took all of the energy and political capital of the first two years of the Obama Administration, in a period when the public was sick of W’s bankrupting the country and getting us into all kinds of wars. Without paying for them, which also bankrupted the country at another level. We should have been able to accomplish so much more. We need to do more than walk and chew gum, we need to walk and chew gum while keeping the hackeysack in the air and dictating the Great American Novel — for starters.
Biden needs to keep up this pace while following up initiatives that he has already launched, commission on the judiciary, immigration, COVID, climate change, etc. but also continuously adding more to the plate. We need to make tangible progress every day, we need to create news cycle after news cycle of leaps forward for the nation. Trump made it fashionable to be a Nazi, let’s make it fashionable to have hope and plans for the future. Not dreams, concrete irrevocable actions. But it is not on the Executive alone.
I want to see those 400+ bills that were left sitting on Mitch McConnell’s desk re-passed by the House in short order and brought to the floor of the Senate, while at the same time creating new initiatives to go even further and to immediately build on any progress and foundations that come about as a result of this initial flurry of activity. I want to see the Legislative branch work 40 hour weeks (at least!) so that we have solid, material accomplishments this year so that going into the mid-term election year the opposition can only talk about the good things that they want to destroy as their campaign plank. But we have to keep momentum.
Impeachment is fine and dandy and necessary, but cannot be all-consuming of the democratic caucus’ energy and mojo. It should be just one more thing to do in a day. Just because we take out the trash doesn’t mean that we don’t have to do the dishes or brush our teeth. And because the Party has demonstrated time and again how easily they lose control of the narrative and waste so much time playing catch-up arguing against pure fantasy (an argument that can’t be won and therefore shouldn’t be had), we need to be the Party of doers. The Democratic Party believes that government has a powerful, positive role to play in the lives of Americans, and we also ostensibly know how to govern. Our guys and gals did not go up there to dismantle the government, they went because they believe that they can make lives better. The transformative power of good governance needs to be demonstrated — it has been too long. But it requires a lot of right-here, right-now action. Let’s keep the our friends across the aisle dizzy with the output and productivity of the 117th Congress. Let’s keep them off-balance with offers to let them join us on overwhelmingly popular issues. Let’s keep them too busy reading the summary of actions taken yesterday to plan sabotage against actions to be taken tomorrow. And let’s keep churning out good legislation at such a rate that they don’t have time to fill the heads of their Foxified zombie army with obsessions on any one issue because, by the time they have explained to their flock that it is important to let old people die and children starve, we have already addressed those issues with common sense platforms and are on to the next set of problems that need to be addressed, and can only be addressed, by a well-intentioned government. Let’s not spend too much time talking, let our Gish Gallop be expressed in a flood of deeds, not words.
Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe!
(If the wind fails you, use the oars)
